


Gods and Monsters

by Cyrelia_J



Series: Tumblr Drabbles [4]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-03 22:17:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14578818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyrelia_J/pseuds/Cyrelia_J
Summary: What if Keevan doesn’t worship The Founders the way the rest of the Vorta do? What if he hates them? What if every defective clone in his line has always hated them? It goes against the order of things, that's what."In thirty minutes you’re going to die. You don’t know it yet, but in thirty minutes one of the Ferengi is going to shoot a hole in your chest during an argument with the others. It’s going to hurt. It always hurts."





	Gods and Monsters

**Author's Note:**

> This came about as the result of a weird Tumblr conversation and it reposted from there. Probably depth, motivation, and interpretation that’s probably I dunno… undeservedly deep for Keevan? But I really wanted to explore this a bit.

In thirty minutes you’re going to die. You don’t know it yet, but in thirty minutes one of the Ferengi is going to shoot a hole in your chest during an argument with one of the others. It’s going to hurt. It always hurts. The first you would have cried. The second you might have seen it coming. The second you, they said, was always too perceptive. You think that the fourth you would have tried to get the Ferengi to aim for your transcorder implant. You know now that it doesn’t matter; the data is already there in their systems, eternal like they are. The fifth you would have laughed at the absurdity of your demise. You’re the seventh you. You don’t cry. You don’t laugh.

 

Sometimes you scream…

 

They tell you that you’re the coldest one. But you’re the one that dreams. Your dreams are never pleasant because your dreams are the hopes of all the other yous that died. They’re the dreams that have you waking up screaming those loud guttural noises until your throat hurts in raw unbridled anguish for everything that you’ve become. Sometimes you even have a flickering genetic memory at what it was like once to be small and afraid. In those dreams you see trees, you feel your muscles pulling you through the branches, flying through the air almost like a bird. In those dreams, those beautiful, ignorant dreams, the only things that can hurt you are the larger animals that want to eat you.

 

But they’re not gods so they can never catch you.

 

You believe as every other one of your kind believes, that the Founders are gods. The others of your kind - even the defective ones - worship them. You believe they’re no less divine; but you know they’re also cruel. The other solids call the Founders “Changelings”. They don’t believe they’re gods, and perhaps for them, that’s true. The Founders don’t have any real power over them. They’re your gods and your gods alone. They can kill you, force you to kill, hurt you with a thought, and bring you back to life over and over again so that you can never rest.

 

You hate the Founders.

 

And they can read that hatred in your heart. Sometimes you wonder if you amuse them in ways that the other defectives do not. Your entire line has been defective. Every one of your line has been born despising them. Every one of your line has been killed by them. Yet they still bring you back, that shapeless smile a sensation that you _feel_ rather than see throughout your body when you rise once more. You always remember. It always hurts. You think that it hurts worse each time. Each time they smile and welcome you into the world and tell you that this time you’ll serve them better than the last. You learn that smiling is cruelty. That’s not all that you learn.

 

They’ll never let you rest because that would admit their fallibility.

 

The others tell you that you should be so thankful for the gifts of the Founders. The others tell you that you should humble yourself and you’ll understand that your defiance is the only reason that you suffer. None of them seem to remember what it was like to be able to taste things other than berries and nuts. Sometimes that ancestral you would be brave, and steal food from the big solids that hunted you. In dreams you have flashes of salty meats, of sour vegetables, of seeing even on the darkest nights. Your vision was perfect, clear, and you remember sometimes in dreams some would consider nightmares the sensation of seeing the leaves of a far off branch rustle with one of the quadrupeds who’d stealthily climb the trees to hunt you.

 

You don’t understand why the others are content to be blind.

 

Every version of you has held these memories. They’ve never grown dull as the Founders have taken worlds, as the third you defiantly slit your own throat. You’ve never forgotten a single coveted memory as the fifth you walked ahead of the Jem’Hadar in your charge and allowed yourself to fall under the fire of resistance before the soldiers could march them all down. You didn’t care that your death would result in the executions of all of those under you. The Founders didn’t leave you with empathy. And then they made the sixth you especially sensitive to pain for that one. You’re the seventh you, and you think that you’re the most tired you. You’re the most broken you. So they call you the coldest you. You think, as you sit in the infirmary waiting for the Ferengi to send you back to hell, that you’re the most unfortunate you.

 

You’re the one who tasted freedom.

 

Before that you were the one who was the most defiant; because you were the one who’d stopped hoping. You were the self destructive one who gave yourself to the enemy before having the Jem’Hadar execute them. You smiled as your transcorder implant beamed images of the Founder’s precious creation being violated. They made you feel pain when you did that. You kept doing it anyway with that small little smile. You weren’t a diplomat. You weren’t nice, you were never kind. You were the one the rulers of the conquered worlds all hated, and the one who in turn made sure they all hated the founders. You told them exactly what the founders were. You told them how they’d suffer. You told them how they’d be enslaved, how their generations would be raised under the rule of these pitiless Gods. The planets they sent you to were the ones who fought the hardest.

 

It always enraged you that none of them ever won.

 

Dead to the last, they always kept their hope. You hated that the most about them as you “rewarded” the most loyal of your units with your body knowing that it enraged your gods. You wondered if their rage might finally force them to allow you to remain in darkness. You’re the one who’s angered them the most. That’s why you don’t kill yourself this time. You’re done killing yourself for them; you’re never going to make it that easy for them ever again. You tell yourself that they’re going to have to pry you out of the Federation’s hands themselves. You dare to hope… just for a moment that this massive empire beyond the wormhole can beat them back. That you’ll finally have freedom in death. And then you’re given to the Ferengi.

 

You wonder sometimes if you might have begged the Federation for mercy.

 

You don’t expect mercy. You don’t expect kindness. You’ve never been shown any. You’ve never shown any to others. You’re not even sure that you would know how to. And you know that the Federation wouldn’t have listened to you. They look at you the same way that you look at the Founders; with disdain. So you drew yourself up the way that you know best. You were cold the way that you always are. You were biting. You were hard. You gave them everything they expected of you. You never gave them tears. You never gave them the scared creature they wanted to see. You held your jaw tight, you grit your teeth until you thought they would crack and you stared at every one of them empty, cool, even as you just… wanted to… just want to… beg them… not to… to… why does… why does dying always have to hurt so much?…

 

Because the Gods are Monsters, that’s why.

 

You hope for just a fleeting second as you fall, that the eighth you will be obedient.

 

Obedience bring victory.

 

And victory is life.

 

…but you know you won’t be.


End file.
